


Witness Protection

by georgiamagnolia



Category: Man From U.N.C.L.E.
Genre: Gen, Mission Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-10
Updated: 2011-08-10
Packaged: 2017-10-22 11:25:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/237538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/georgiamagnolia/pseuds/georgiamagnolia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Yes, fans of In Plain Sight will recognize some elements here.  How do you know that Stan's dad wasn't UNCLE?  It's not really a crossover, just a hint of a possibility of something that might have been, I hope you will forgive my whim.</p></blockquote>





	Witness Protection

Napoleon crouched low behind an overturned table, sparing a look up to see nothing through the smoke. If he couldn’t see anything, neither could any THRUSH that might be on the other side of the room. The crackling and spitting fire covered any sound, unfortunately it covered any indication that the enemy was getting closer, or was there at all. He was going to have to run blind for the stairs and hope that the THRUSH missed seeing the move. Napoleon tried his best to keep from choking out a cough as he ran low toward what he hoped was the staircase.

The smoke grew thicker as he got closer to the source of the flames, taking the stairs on hands and knees to stay as much out of the smoke as possible. He realized he had gained the hallway only because the floor evened out.

Napoleon put his weapon back in its holster, then he loosened the knot of his tie and pulled it down, unbuttoning his collar and pulling his tee shirt up and over his mouth and nose to filter the smoke out as best he could. He could do nothing about the way his eyes were already streaming from the irritation so he started to drag himself down the hall, staying close to the wall to look for the right door.

Napoleon could make out the legs of a crib and a rocking chair so he knew he’d found the correct room, what he hadn’t expected was the unconscious man on the floor. A quick check confirmed a pulse and a goose egg on the back of his head, someone had cold-cocked him and left him to die from smoke inhalation. Disturbingly, there was no sound from the crib. As he was rising from his crouch over the man a figure in black moved quickly into the room and slammed the door.

“Nothing out front and Miss Hargrove is safely locked in the car. I think the shots were distraction, the birds have flown the coop.” Illya moved to the window and threw up the sash as Napoleon leaned over the crib. “Who’s our surprise guest?”

“I haven’t checked his pockets yet,” Napoleon’s voice was muffled.

The smoke was starting to clear with the window open, but the sound of the flames was growing louder and there was a glow under the closed door.

“We can’t go back out that way, we’re going to have to take the window exit.”

“You didn’t happen to bring a ladder with you from the car, did you Illya?”

“There is a ladder in the car?”

“Should have been, I will be sure to let Maintenance know of our displeasure.”

Illya started to push things into a duffle bag that had ducks and bunnies in happy pastel colours printed all over it, handfuls of diapers and clothes and receiving blankets disappeared into its depths quickly.

“Don’t forget these,” Napoleon rattled a box of oversize pins at his partner. Illya took the diaper pins and dumped them in, continuing to stuff until the bag would barely zipper shut. Then he went to the window and tossed it out into the tiny back yard.

Napoleon had lifted the baby and was swaddling her into a blanket.

“She’s okay?”

“For now, she’s breathing. And sleeping, oddly. You’d think she’d wake up from the noise.”

“Dosed with something?” Illya asked as he knelt near the still unconscious stranger, checking the man’s pockets.

“We’ll find out at Medical, provided we get there.”

The crackle of the fire was increasing and the smoke and glow coming in the gap below the door was growing.

“Nothing in his pockets, just a notebook.” Illya stood and handed it to Napoleon. “How sturdy do you think the window frame is?”

Napoleon eyed the wood and shrugged at his partner, “Old house, likely a hardwood of some kind. What do you have in mind?”

“Stand back.”

Napoleon turned to shield the child, tucked the notebook in his jacket and heard a crash. When he looked back the window was closed but empty of glass.

Illya shook out the comforter he’d used to cover the window as he broke out the glass, then folded it in half and laid it over the bottom of the window frame. “We’re going to have to lower him down,” Illya nodded toward the man on the floor. “I don’t think he wants to take the same route as the diaper bag.”

“Neither do I.”

Illya reached under his jacket and brought out a length of rope, quickly tying it under the arms and around the chest of the unconscious man, looking up when Napoleon spoke.

“You had a plan the whole time.”

“I suspected that THRUSH meant to trap the woman and child upstairs where they couldn’t get away from the fire, so I planned ahead a bit, yes.”

“Better than mine, I was just going to jump out the hall window to the roof of the back porch.”

“Which you could have done quite easily if we hadn’t had to take the time to get the mother out the back and deal with strangers showing up unannounced.”

Napoleon nodded his agreement as he laid the baby back in her crib and helped Illya haul said stranger to the window. Illya held the rope over the doubled wooden window frames as Napoleon shoved the man feet first out the window, sliding him and the blanket out to swing from the rope that Illya held taut.

Napoleon reached out and kept the roped man from swinging as Illya eased the slack out a little at a time, gently depositing him at the foundation of the house. Illya tied the rope to the window frame and prepared to climb down it.

“I’ll untie him and then you pull the rope up and send down the baby.”

“Go.”

Illya disappeared out the window and Napoleon watched as the entire door to the nursery now seemed to glow. He wasn’t going to have time to lower the baby as planned. He pulled his belt out of its loops and then picked up the baby. Her eyes were open and still she hadn’t made a sound. Napoleon unbuttoned his shirt and held her close, then buttoned his shirt back up and used his belt to strap her more firmly to his chest. “You know, a papoose would have come in handy today. I wonder why a baby backpack isn’t on the market?”

The baby had no comment, just blinked in the increasing smoke and started to cough.

Napoleon stuck his head out the window to see Illya untying the stranger and Napoleon reached out to grab the now free rope, swinging himself and the coughing baby out over space and climbing down as fast as he knew how.

***

 _The Day Before_

“Napoleon, I have something interesting you might like to see.”

“I’m sure you have many interesting things for me to see, perhaps after dinner some evening, Kay? How about Thursday?”

“This is work, Napoleon. Honestly!” But her exasperation was coloured with laughter. “Shall I come there or will you grace us with your presence down here in Communications?”

“Oh, I am sure you are the graceful one, my sweet. But I was just on my way out so I can stop in and see what you have for me.”

Her reply was again equal parts laughter and exasperation, but it was plain she was enjoying every minute of it.

At Kay’s desk in the large communications center Napoleon found an entire file full of transcribed THRUSH communiqués, and a much smaller file, the one Kay wanted him to see. Napoleon smiled at her, thinking about the evening ahead, thinking about an evening with Kay, thinking about many things that had nothing whatsoever to do with THRUSH or communications mysteries or work in general.

“These,” she indicated the thicker file, “are the intercepted THRUSH messages we have picked up this week. This smaller file is also from this week but were transmitted in very old THRUSH codes that have been known for a while to have been cracked by UNCLE. All of them were sent in the last two days, all of them identical.” She opened the file and showed him. “This is a list of addresses. The message says that numbers one and two have been terminated. Number three is scheduled for termination in three days and four and five for next week. I checked, both the first and second addresses are for current open cases of suspected arson with the New York Fire Department.”

Napoleon raised a brow.

“And there were casualties.”

Napoleon frowned and held out his hand. Kay handed the file to him and he read through the messages and then looked over the notes she had made in the margins regarding the arson reports.

“The first message was intercepted the day after the first fire?” Napoleon was all business now, his earlier flirtation with the young woman forgotten.

“Yes, and the message only changed when the second fire had been reported. That is the only change that has been made in the text.”

“Sounds like an automated message, like an emergency beacon. Can you find out where the message is coming from?”

“I don’t…” she faltered when she saw the frown on Napoleon’s brow, though he wasn’t aiming it at her, “I can try. I might be able to narrow it down to one or two boroughs?”

“Do the best you can, Kay, I appreciate it. You did a good job, bringing this to me. Ever think of applying for one of the other sections? You’re a pretty good detective.”

“Well, thank you, Napoleon, but I prefer my neck intact and not on a chopping block.”

“Section Three is always looking for analysts, Kay, you should think about it. Not everyone has to carry a gun and paint a target on themselves, you know.” Napoleon smiled at her again and she almost considered a Section change just to see it more often, then shook herself out of her daydream as Napoleon continued, “Could you scare up Illya for me, he was going to the lab last time I knew. Ask him to meet me in our office if he is free, will you?”

“Of course.”

Napoleon turned and was gone, the half formed idea of asking Kay out to dinner for later in the week forgotten entirely.

***

 _The Next Day_

“I don’t know what they were doing to the babies or the mothers, I only know I was supposed to escort them to the doctor appointment and home again and make sure they didn’t talk to nobody else but the doctor and then the babies started being born and there was things wrong with them. But not really wrong, like only one of them looked different, but there was other things, well, kinda different about them. And then they started, the bosses that is, they started talking about termination. I think they forgot I was there, if you know what I mean, they talked about termination of the experiments. I thought they meant to stop taking care of the babies and the mothers and they really meant killing all of them. If I’d known…” The young man in the hospital bed became even more pale, if that were possible, and a little sick looking, like he might throw up or cry. He took a deep shuddering breath and continued, “I didn’t know until it started what they meant. After the first house was burned I started asking questions and they started watching me. I had a friend that worked in the electronics division and he showed me all this old equipment one time and I went and stole some of it, it had codes in it that were broke but I hoped that someone might hear. They followed me when I went to change the messages, I got away and hid the radio. I didn’t know they had found me again when I went to get Christie out of her house. It’s their house you know, really, not hers. They caught me there. Maybe if I hadn’t gone there she’d have gotten out, or somebody would have found her.” He seemed to run out of energy and laid back against the pillows, still as pale as the sheets on his bed.

“What had you intended to do once you took Miss Hargrove and her child from the house?”

“I just wanted to get them safe. I wanted to get them all safe, but Christie, she’s more special. I wanted,” his voice softened and faltered again, “I was going to ask her to marry me, to run away from those people. We talked on her trips to the doctor, she lived far away from the doctor office and we got to know each other pretty good. Good enough anyway, I think. I hope she would have said yes.” The young man never opened his eyes as he spoke, afraid perhaps of seeing some truth in his questioner’s eyes, or perhaps pity. “I think she would have.” A tear finally escaped but the young man ignored it, and so did Illya.

“How did you come to find yourself working for THRUSH?”

“My friend who worked with the electronic things, he got me a job in the motor pool a few years back, being a mechanic. I’ve been a driver now for two years.” He sounded proud of the promotion but there was still sadness in his voice. “But he’s not there anymore. He got a promotion and then there was an accident and he died. Nobody would tell me exactly what. They don’t much like questions.”

Illya leaned over to check the readout on the machinery that had been hooked up to the young man along with the other medical instruments. There was every indication that he was being as truthful as he know how to be, or at least he believed what he was saying to be true.

“Our medical staff is going to want to check on you soon, try to get some rest.” Illya closed the door as he left and found his partner waiting for him in the hall.

“Sympathy for the enemy?”

“Not exactly. He was questioned with drugs last night and has no memory of it at all; I was checking to see if he said the same things while under his own power. He has either been very strongly programmed or is telling the absolute truth as he understands it.”

“So he was employed by THRUSH but not meant to be in on any of their plots, then fell in love with the wrong girl.”

“Perhaps you might sympathize with him better?”

Napoleon made a sour face at Illya as they got on the elevator and proceeded toward their employer’s office.

***

“So what you have determined is that neither of these young people have any idea what THRUSH was doing with these children or what plans they had for the future had they not decided to literally bury the evidence?”

“That seems to sum it up, yes.” Napoleon handed Alexander Waverly a folder with statements from the three young women that UNCLE had rescued and then interviewed. “The young women found themselves in difficult situations and they were approached by people they believe to be social workers offering assistance.”

“The children have all checked out healthy with Medical.” Illya picked up the narrative for their boss. “They can find nothing to explain the unusual quiet and calm of the children, the mothers all report that even when hungry or ill, their babies remain quiet, barely crying or showing emotions, such as another child of their age might.”

“What has THRUSH done to breed a docile population? If it is a drug or some kind of breeding programme we need to uncover it and put a stop to it. Who do you have on the doctor’s office?” Mr. Waverly looked up from the file and frowned.

“I have Lake and Reilly with some backup from Section Three assigned to the doctor. They should have some preliminary information this evening. Illya and I will be seeing what we can find at the offices where our new guest worked in the motor pool.”

“Very good, keep me informed. Any thoughts on what to do with our fledglings?”

“Sir?” Napoleon looked a question at Illya and then back to Waverly.

“We cannot release these young women and their children without THRUSH surely finding out that we duped them with stories of burned bodies in demolished houses. And we have a THRUSH turncoat to deal with as well. Suggestions?”

“Without yet knowing what THRUSH has done to these children, and quite possibly the mothers as well, we should place them where we can not only keep an eye on them but protect them as well. It will need to be far from New York.” Napoleon crossed his arms and thought for a moment. “We have a new office opening up out West, THRUSH hasn’t yet had a chance to find out about it. If we were to station our guests out there, we might be able to hide them for quite a while.”

“And what of Mr. Simms?” Illya asked.

“I am inclined to include him, he has proven himself better than his former employers, after all.” Mr. Waverly closed the file and stood, indicating that the meeting was at an end and there was work to be done. “And I think it is time we let him know that he was successful in saving his charges, I suspect that will help him recover somewhat more quickly. I do believe that Miss Hargrove would have said yes to his question, he should have a chance to ask it. I will make the arrangements with Mr. McQueen in Albuquerque. His wife just gave birth to a son so I think he will be sympathetic to the situation.”

Alexander walked the men out of his office and stopped to talk to his secretary as they continued down the hall. When they were out of earshot Napoleon turned to Illya, “You know he has been down to see the nursery three times today, Illya. And Mrs. Waverly was in at lunchtime.”

“Gossip, Napoleon?”

“No, ah, I might have run into him once or twice.”

“Oh Napoleon, for hardened international crime fighting agents, we are certainly a soft-hearted bunch.”

“We, partner?”

“I might have made a notation in my own file on the case that said something to the effect that Mr. Simms would be a low risk candidate for relocation rather than incarceration.” Illya gave his partner a sidelong glance. “Especially if he had reason to avoid feeling a need for vengeance.”

“Still waters, Mr. Kuryakin.” Napoleon smiled.

“One can drown just as easily in the shallow end, Mr. Solo.” Illya might have been smirking as they turned toward their office.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, fans of In Plain Sight will recognize some elements here. How do you know that Stan's dad wasn't UNCLE? It's not really a crossover, just a hint of a possibility of something that might have been, I hope you will forgive my whim.


End file.
